Remembrancer
Aquila]] A Remembrancer was a civilian artist, historian or journalist who was a member of the Imperial Remembrancer Order that accompanied the Expeditionary Fleets of the Great Crusade in the early 31st Millennium. Their function was to chronicle all the glorious deeds of the Space Marine Legions and the Imperial Army in the course of the Crusade so that the future posterity of the Imperium of Man would know how humanity had come to dominate the galaxy. The Remembrancers were overwhelmingly natives of Terra who had vied with other preeminent artists of the era for the honour of accompanying the Expeditionary Fleets led by the Astartes, who very grudgingly accepted them aboard the starships of their fleets. Showing the common disdain for journalists held by warriors of every generation and era, the Remembrancers were generally disliked by the Primarchs, the Astartes and the line troops of the Imperial Army. Leman Russ, the Primarch of the Space Wolves, once suggested that all Remembrancers should be armed and prepared for battle if they wanted to see the front lines of a war. However, Fulgrim, the Primarch of the Emperor's Children Legion, took a fundamentally different view and welcomed the Remembrancers amongst his Astartes and troops, believing that the promotion of an artistic sense was every bit as important to the life of a warrior as was training in the arts of war. The Remembrancer Order included many different forms of artists and journalists within their ranks, including poets, imagists (photojournalists), historiographers (historians), documentarists (journalists), painters, sculptors, actors, singers and even composers. Once the Horus Heresy began, most of the civilian Remembrancers in the Expeditionary Fleets that served Horus and turned to Chaos were slaughtered by the Traitors within the fleet to keep them from documenting the betrayal. One exception to this were the Remembrancers of the 28th Expeditionary Fleet, many of whom were exposed to the Chaos corruption of the planet Laeran and subsequently turned to the service of Slaanesh themselves, just like the Emperor's Children. It is unknown what happened to the records of the Great Crusade and early Horus Heresy era created by the Remembrancer Order; such records have been lost to the thread-bare Imperial chronicles that exist of that time in the late 41st Millennium. Notable Remembrancers *'Serena d'Angelus' - Painter who served with the Emperor's Children Legion in the 28th Expeditionary Fleet. Considered to be one of the most talented painters in the Imperium, Serena chose to join the Remembrancers due to a feeling of artistic stagnation in her success on Terra. Although her works were lauded by most critics, Serena was often prone to self-mutilative "cutting" due to a deep-rooted (and utterly unfounded) fear that her paintings would be viewed as inadequate and without merit. Serena was exposed to the Chaotic taint of Slaanesh when she visited the surface of the world of Laeran with many of her fellow Remembrancers. The Chaotic corruption took root in her and she soon began to resort to foul incidents of brutal murder so that she could produce Chaotically-tainted paintings using the blood and other bodily fluids of her victims. One of these paintings, a garish horror that was intended to be a likeness of Fulgrim, ultimately became the resting place for the Greater Daemon of Slaanesh that inhabited Fulgrim's Daemon Sword, and later for the soul of Fulgrim himself after he was tricked into allowing the daemon to possess his body. Like all those corrupted by Slaanesh, she was overcome by the need to seek constant stimulation through the pursuit of ever more extreme and perverse experiences. Yet Serena gradually fought the corruption and came to her senses by seeking out Ostian Delafour for help, with whom she had shared a romantic connection before her exposure to Slaanesh's power. Sadly, Ostian had already been murdered in his studio by the Primarch Fulgrim for creating a sculpture of the Emperor that had angered him. Overcome by her guilt and sadness at the death of the man who had loved her and tried to rescue her from the grasp of Chaos, Serena committed suicide by impaling herself on the same sword that had taken Ostian's life and was still imbedded, along with Ostian's body, in the remains of the statue of the Emperor he had so perfectly crafted. *'Ostian Delafour' - Sculptor who served with the Emperor's Children Legion in the 28th Expeditionary Fleet. Delafour was a sculptor of immense renown from Terra whose sculptures were so exquisite that he had been patronised by the Emperor and soon came to the attention of the Primarch Fulgrim. Delafour ran afoul of the composer Bequa Kynska, who also accompanied the 28th Expeditionary Fleet, when he refused her attempts at seduction because of his love for the painter Serena d'Angelus, who was also a Remembrancer of the 28th Expeditionary Fleet. Kynska retaliated by preventing Delafour from traveling to the surface of the world of Laeran where he was ironically spared from being exposed to the Chaotic corruption unleashed in the rest of the Legion by their exposure to the Temple of Slaanesh in the Laer species' capital. Delafour fell from Fulgrim's favour after he critiqued Fulgrim's own attempts at the sculptor's art, finding them so perfectly flawless that they lacked the imperfections that gave great art its soul and character. As the Emperor's Children fell to the corruption of Slaanesh after conquering the Chaotic world of Laeran, Delafour remained isolated in his studio, creating an extraordinary statue of the Emperor of Mankind that was perhaps his greatest work. When Fulgrim entered the studio and saw the statue, he was deeply angered by both the greatness of Delafour's work that he could not match and by the heroic image of the Emperor he believed had betrayed him and his brothers. Fulgrim slew Delafour by driving his sword through both the statue and the sculptor's body even as he defaced the statue of the father he intended to betray. *'Kallista Eris' - Historiographer (Historian), who was also a powerful psyker with the ability to read the memories and emotions associated with any object. Eris was also gifted with powerful precognitive visions. She was assigned to record the deeds of the Thousand Sons Legion on their homeworld of Prospero but was ultimately consumed and torn apart by the power of the Warp when the Thousand Sons used her abilities to foresee the coming assault on Prospero by the Space Wolves Legion of Leman Russ, long the bitter rival of the Thousand Sons and their Primarch Magnus the Red. *'Mahavastu Kallimakus' - Remembrancer known as "the Scribe of Magnus" who personally served the Thousand Sons Legion's Primarch Magnus the Red during the Great Crusade. He authored the esoteric work known as the Book of Magnus, the Crimson King's greatest tome of sorcery and mystic rites. As the personal scribe of Magnus he was present at events of such historical significance as the Council of Nikaea, where the Emperor forbade Magnus and his Legion the use of their psychic abilities and the dissolution of the Librarius corps of every Legion. When Magnus broke this sacred edict by sending a telepathic warning using a sorcerous ritual to the Imperial Palace on Terra, the Space Wolves Legion was charged with bringing the Crimson King to Terra in chains to face the judgement of the Emperor himself. As the Wolves of Fenris made their way in-system towards the Thousand Sons homeworld of Prospero, several civilian starships had already fled or were in the process of fleeing the planet and the system in considerable numbers. Some of these vessels were overtaken and boarded. Their crews and passengers were taken captive and interrogated by the Space Wolves' Rune Priests, so that every scrap of information could be gathered. Kallimakus fled aboard one such ship, the Cypria Selene, which carried a number of Imperial Remembrancers who had been posted to Prospero to observe the XVth Astartes Legion. Somehow, Kallimakus managed to escape the Rune Priests' scrutiny and was eventually released from the Space Wolves' custody. After the Space Wolves destroyed Prospero, none spared a thought for the missing Remembrancer. Only after the casting of the Rubric of Ahriman and his exile by Magnus did the Thousand Sons Chaos Sorcerer Ahriman recall the mystic writings of Kallimakus. He eventually found the long dead Remembrancer's works on the world of Appollonia nearly a millennium and a half later. A fanatical priesthood had sprung up around these writings and fiercely guarded them within a citadel which housed the library of similar works, which was called the Athenaeuum of Kallimakus. Though the vault was lined with protective runes, and the books sat amidst smouldering sorcerous flames, they proved to be little deterrent to Ahriman and his Thousand Sons in claiming the books. After a bitter month-long siege, Ahriman emerged triumphant and plundered the writings of Kallimakus, burning the library to ashes so that he alone would hold the forbidden secrets it contained. *'Ignace Karkasy' - Ignace Karkasy was a Remembrancer of the XVIth Legion's 63rd Expeditionary Fleet during the Great Crusade. Karkasy was not the most upstanding of men, and was known for his acerbic nature and love of drink, but his poetry also stood out for always telling the truth as Karkasy saw it, a trait that earned him the respect and protection of of the Luna Wolves Legion Captain Garviel Loken. Due to his outspoken nature, he was soon destined to be shipped back to Terra, but was spared this fate after Loken, once again, intervened on his behalf and became his sponsor. It was the Captain's personal belief that the expeditionary fleet needed an individual like Karkasy, for he always told the truth, no matter how ugly. This trait would eventually lead to his downfall. After he penned his inflammatory work, "The Truth Is All We Have," a controversial work which condemned the acts of both Loken and his fellow Mournival following their careless actions after they brought their dying Primarch Horus aboard the flagship after he was mortally wounded by the mysterious Anathame sword of the corrupted Eugene Temba, this caused much animosity between himself and many of the Sons of Horus Legionaries. When a large civilian contingent had gathered aboard the flagship to catch a glimpse of the fallen Warmaster when he was brought aboard, the Mournival, in their haste and desperation to save their Primarch, accidentally trampled 27 civilians to death on their way to the ship's Apothecarion. Due to the horrific nature of this incident, Karkasy began to print newsletters warning of the hypocrisy of the Legionaries' actions. This earned the ire of many Legionaries within the XVIth Legion. Karkasy would ultimately meet his fate at the hands Maggard, the mute, gene-enhanced bodyguard of Petronella Vivar (Horus' personal Remembrancer), who was sent to silence him by the increasingly paranoid Horus, because of Karkasy's subversive ideas and controversial writings. Maggard, which Horus had made a new civilian enforcer, sent him under the guise of handing him a note; the note was in actuality a forged suicide note, and shortly after reading it Karkasy was shot in the head by Maggard's Bolt Pistol. Maggard then planted the weapon in the dead man's grip to give credence to his suicide. *'Euphrati Keeler' - Imagist, escaped the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet and Horus' slaughter of all the other Remembrancers present on the Battle Barge Vengeful Spirit with Mersadie Oliton and the Iterator Kyril Sindermann aboard the Imperial frigate Eisenstein that was commanded by the Loyalist Death Guard Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro. Keeler and the others had only escaped the Vengeful Spirit with the help of the Luna Wolves Captain Iacton Qruze. Keeler became an avid proponent of the Lectitio Divinitatus, the forerunner to the Imperial Cult that held the Emperor of Mankind to be a God. Her faith in the Emperor would prove to be so absolute that it would provide psychic protection against the powers of daemons summoned from the Warp, and Keeler would go on to become one of the earliest Saints recognised by the Imperial Creed. *'Bequa Kynska' - Kynska was the greatest composer and musician of Terra who accompanied the 28th Expeditionary Fleet at the request of the Primarch Fulgrim who wanted his Astartes and Imperial Army contingents to be exposed to high culture. Kynska was an extremely self-centred hedonist who enjoyed a variety of sensual perversions even before she was ultimately corrupted by Slaanesh, and her natural predilections later made her a willing servant of the Prince of Chaos. She was known for her blue hair and other outrageous cosmetic choices. Bequa sought to seduce the sculptor Ostian Delafour, but when he rejected her because of his love for the painter Serena d'Angelus, she spitefully intervened with the Emperor's Children to prevent Delafour from visiting the recently conquered xenos world of Laeran. Ironically, this malicious act spared Delafour from being corrupted by exposure to the Temple of Slaanesh in the Laer species' equivalent of a capital city. But Kynska was exposed to the Chaotic energies of Slaanesh and the corruption of the Prince of Pleasure inspired her to create what she believed to be her greatest work, a symphony called the Maraviglia. The symphony was actually a discordant acoustic work of Chaotic sorcery that when performed for the corrupted members of the 28th Expeditionary Fleet opened a portal through the Warp and allowed Slaaneshi Lesser Daemons called Daemonettes to possess several of the singers and other musicians. At the same time, it inspired scenes of mass slaughter by the corrupted Emperor's Children Astartes throughout the Remembrancers' space on Fulgrim's flagship. Kynska herself was ultimately slain by a Daemonette who had possessed the body of her lead singer during the performance of the Maraviglia. *'Mersadie Oliton' - Documentarist (Journalist) who served as the personal Remembrancer of the deeds of Captain Garviel Loken of the Luna Wolves. She was close friends with the poet Ignace Karkasy and the Imagist Euphrati Keeler, but Ignace and Mersadie were far more skeptical of the doctrines of the Lectitio Divinitatus than Keeler, the future Saint of the Imperial Cult. Oliton managed to escape the slaughter of the Remembrancers ordered by Horus alongside Keeler and the Iterator Kyril Sindermann with the aid of Captain Iacton Qruze and make it to the frigate Eisenstein, which escaped the slaughter of Istvaan III and made its way to Terra to warn the Emperor of Horus' betrayal. After she arrived at Terra, Mersadie was taken by Imperial authorities and imprisoned on a orbital prison located in the orbit of the moon Titan. Once she was imprisoned, she had her memory coils removed and was kept there until the end of the Heresy. She was briefly visited by Garviel Loken when he was a Knight-Errant of Malcador the Sigillite. He was consumed by anger in regards to her unjust imprisonment and almost killed fellow Knight-Errant Iacton Qruze because he failed to tell Loken about her imprisonment, which had been done on the personal order of the Imperial Fists Primarch Rogal Dorn. Her ultimate fate following the Horus Heresy is unknown. *'Petronella Vivar' - Documentarist (Journalist) who was the arrogant scion of a Terran noble family who sought to become the Warmaster Horus' personal Remembrancer. The Vivar family was well-known on Terra as the documentarists who had chronicled the Unification Wars that had ultimately unified Terra beneath the Emperor's rule in the 29th Millennium and also for recording the deeds of the early days of the Great Crusade when the Emperor had rediscovered all his sons, the lost Primarchs. She was later killed by Horus himself after his corruption by Chaos in her own luxurious quarters aboard his flagship, the Vengeful Spirit, to protect the secrets he had revealed to her. *'Solomon Voss' - Solomon Voss was the wordsmith (author) of such vaunted works as The Edge of Illumination, witness to the first conquests of the Great Crusade, and according to many, the finest wordsmith of the age. As a wordsmith, he was tolerated amongst the elite of the Imperium for his abilities to turn their deeds into words that could inflame the passions and ardour of men. Before the the Triumph of Ullanor, Solomon Voss was one of many Imperial intellectuals who had struck upon the idea of creating a unique order composed of a thousand artists sent out with the Expeditionary Fleets to reflect the truth of the Great Crusade. Voss was instrumental in petitioning the Emperor to create this order of artists who would witness, record and reflect the light of the Imperial Truth spread by the Great Crusade so that an accurate record of the Imperium's founding would always be available to later generations. The Council of Terra took this idea under consideration and later ratified the creation of the Order of Remembrancers. Initially, Voss was a part of the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet, one of the largest and most powerful fleets deployed during the Great Crusade. The 63rd was the personal fleet of Horus, the Warmaster of the Imperium and the supreme commander of the Great Crusade after the Emperor returned to Terra. Some time before Horus' mortal wounding on the feral moon of Davin, Voss had transferred from the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet to the 817th Expeditionary Fleet. Voss was on the world of Hattusa when word reached him of Horus' rebellion against the Emperor. Unable to come to terms with the reason why the Warmaster rebelled against the Emperor, Voss sought to see the truth with his own eyes; to witness it and make sense of what he saw and give these events some sort of context. Voss felt that as a Remembrancer it was his duty to make sense of great events for posterity. He knew that others would doubt or would not believe that the brightest son of the Imperium could turn against it. If it was true that Horus had become the vilest of Traitors, he wanted that truth explored in the works of as many Remembrancers as possible. He prepared to depart to Istvaan V by calling in favours and contacts, but before he could leave, the Edict of Dissolution came through and by the order of the Council of Terra the Order of Remembrancers was no more. The Council had felt that the Remembrancers could not be allowed to wander through a civil war recording the shame of the Legiones Astartes -- and all Mankind -- in literature, paintings and songs. The position presented at the time was perfectly logical; since the Imperium was at war with itself, there was no telling how far the treachery of Horus had spread. The Corps of Remembrancers was to be dissolved back into Imperial society. Those already amongst the Expeditionary Fleets were ordered to cease their recording of events. Collaborating with Askarid Sha, an illuminator and calligraphist who had lettered Voss' work into scrolls and tomes as beautiful as his words, the two Remembrancers set out for Istvaan V to seek out Horus' fleet in violation of the Imperial orders. Voss had contacts throughout the Expeditionary Fleets, on both sides of the war. By the time Voss and his companion reached Istvaan V, the Drop Site Massacre had already occurred. He never reached the surface but the void around the battered planet was choked with debris from destroyed vessels. The Sons of Horus captured Voss and the other 20 Remembrancers he had convinced to come along to show the truth of the tragedy engulfing the Imperium. Taken to the audience chamber aboard Horus' flagship the Vengeful Spirit, the Remembrancers were gunned down by Horus' Justaerin Terminators. Voss alone was spared execution, to act as the personal Remembrancer of Horus himself -- a sole witness to every dark and bloody moment and every word of hate spewed by the Arch-Traitor. Eventually Voss was released by his captors and was sent away from Horus' fleet to be captured by the Imperial authorities. Horus wanted the Imperium to know that the Imperial Truth was dead. The Remembrancer was brought to a nameless fortress hidden from the sun on the dark side of Saturn's moon of Titan (the future fortress-monastery of the Grey Knights Space Marine Chapter) and placed within one of the multitude of anonymous cells, newly constructed to serve as a place for the interrogation of turncoats and the execution of Traitors. Voss was questioned by none other than the Imperial Fists' Primarch, Rogal Dorn, with the former Luna Wolves Astartes Iacton Qruze acting on behalf of Malcador the Sigillite as a silent witness and executioner. The truth learned by Voss and revealed to Dorn was that the Imperium would never regain its former glory because there was no longer any trust. Voss argued that the ideals of truth, reason and illumination were dead and that if the Imperium truly had nothing to fear from Horus and the Traitors' cause, his final work on what he witnessed amongst the Traitors should be revealed to all within the Emperor's realm. The truth of what Voss had revealed about the rifts emerging in the Imperium enraged the Primarch. Dorn exited the chamber cell and clad himself in his Power Armour. Returning to Voss' cell, Qruze pulled his large Power Sword from its scabbard. But instead of Qruze carrying out the execution, Dorn took the sword from Qruze and executed the Remembrancer himself. All of Voss' work was burned by Imperial decree and he was posthumously declared a Traitor to the Imperium. Sources *''Codex: Chaos Space Marines'' (4th Edition), pg. 51 *''Horus Rising'' (Novel) by Dan Abnett *''False Gods'' (Novel) by Graham McNeill *''Galaxy in Flames'' (Novel) by Ben Counter *''Flight of the Eisenstein'' (Novel) by James Swallow *''Fulgrim'' (Novel) by Graham McNeill *''A Thousand Sons'' (Novel) by Graham McNeill *''Prospero Burns'' (Novel) by Dan Abnett *''Age of Darkness'' (Anthology), "The Last Remembrancer" by John French *''Deliverance Lost'' (Novel) by Gav Thorpe es:Rememorador Category:R Category:History Category:Imperial Campaigns Category:Imperial History Category:Imperium